The recent history of Finnish winter navigation in the Baltic Sea

Abstract

The Baltic Sea is one of the major maritime highway. During the middle ages, many of its southern ports belonged to the Hanseatic League. Since then, maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea has grown, having its trading activities internationalised through the diffusion of new shipping technologies. In 2007, the volume of cargo handled in Baltic ports was approximately 850 million tons. Moreover, the Baltic has an excellent network for passenger transportation: approximately 30 million people travel every year by ferry.Nowadays, its winter traffic represents about one quarter of the annual traffic. Nevertheless winter navigation is relatively recent in the extremities of the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. Indeed, at the beginning of maritime transportation, the activity was seasonal and occurred only in open water, threatening to stop completely in winter due to sea ice formation. But for over a century, the evolution of materials and shipping techniques has allowed continuous maritime navigation. Despite the fact that sea ice conditions require the assistance of icebreakers, adapted port infrastructures, the introduction of ice classes and winter restrictions to the navigation, harsh winter conditions inevitably induce an increase in maritime incidents. There is the question of the future of winter navigation in the context of global warming and a possible significant reduction of sea ice.

Baltic Sea ice and environmental and societal implications from the comparative analysis of the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Riga

“…The shipping season in ice free waters would be extended as well as the ship speed increased leading to a growth in traffic. Risk of accidents could then remain as it is nowadays (Lépy 2012). In another system of considerations, it is possible to perceive the early beginnings of a new regional order in a future change of this maritime area due to a possible climate change and geopolitical and economic transformations.…”

“…The study has shown that growth factors are related to a better administrative, legal and technical control of winter shipping conditions in the whole Baltic basin rather than a simple consequence of a possible change in the meteorological and marine system of sea ice. Nowadays, despite the severe Baltic Sea ice conditions, winter traffic accounts for one quarter of the annual traffic (Lépy 2012). For instance, in 2005, ports of the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Riga were totally frozen and despite this, the accumulated winter traffic from January to March was 25,6% in Oulu and 25,8% in Riga 2 .…”

Finding safe and efficient shipping routes in ice-covered waters: A framework and a model

“…Ice navigation is essential for many countries, e.g. Finland (Lépy, 2013), and has major application potential if new shorter routes open in the Arctic as global temperature raises (Lasserre and Pelletier, 2011;Valkonen and Riska, 2014;Kum and Sahin, 2016;Aksenov et al, 2017;Beveridge et al, 2016). Hence, ice navigation tools gather interest from two directions.…”